Strategists to Trump on Orlando: You’re doing it wrong

Republicans and Democrats have found little to agree about in the wake of the Orlando attack, but messaging gurus and admakers from both parties offer similar advice for politicians about how to campaign in the aftermath of a tragedy.

There's no exact blueprint, they say, but there are general rules they say candidates should follow, namely:Be calm in tone, be cautious in approach and avoid anything that leaves one open to charges of exploiting the tragedy for political gain.

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"You want to be sure that you’re respecting the dead and communicating a message that is policy-driven … not just, you know, a knee-jerk- kind of compulsive reaction to the event,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant from Florida who was unaffiliated in the 2016 GOP primary but generally opposed to Trump. “Time and discretion I think would be the two main hallmarks at play.”

Donald Trump has, to put it mildly, taken a different approach in his response.

On the day of the attack, Trump tweeted: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism...” for having predicted terrorism would come to the U.S. And the day after, Trump went full tilt, offering a bombastic speech to renew his push for a controversial ban on Muslim immigration, as well as to rip into President Barack Obama’s national security record — even suggesting, later, that the president had mixed motives in his dealings with terrorism.

Strategists, including Republicans, are predicting this will play poorly for Trump as the election goes on.

“If his goal is to grow his voting base past his rapid hardcore believers, then he is messaging like a complete idiot showing a galling lack of empathy,” said Alex Patton, a Republican political consultant and owner of Ozean Media. “If his goal is to appeal only to his base and drive press coverage, then he is a genius. It also shows me there will be no pivot to broaden his appeal; there will be no outreach past his rabid base. Donald Trump is what he is, and he ain't changing for nobody.”

“The very first thing I heard from Donald Trump is him congratulating himself on calling the next terrorist attack, and I think it’s just been handled absolutely horribly,” said Chris Massicotte, a partner and chief operating officer at DSPolitical, a Democrat-centered advertising agency. “I can’t believe … it took only 140 characters to make this about himself. And that is not what a candidate is supposed to do in a particular tragedy like this one.”

(Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

Trump, however, threw out the standard playbook on the first day of his campaign, and it took him to the top of a crowded GOP primary.

His strategy for reacting to tragedies has been successful before. Trump’s first call for a ban on Muslim immigration was issued following the San Bernardino shootings in December and deadly attacks in Paris before that. At the time, many predicted Trump’s response would be a liability and that GOP primary voters would instead gravitate toward a candidate with more national security experience — predictions that never came to pass.

Trump is not second guessing himself. When he suggested on Monday an increase in military strikes in the Middle East, he asserted that military leaders agree with his proposals. "We have generals who think we can win this thing so fast and so strong but we have to be furious for a short period of time and we're not doing it," Trump said.

On Wednesday, Trump claimed that members of the LGBTQ community approved of his recent statements regarding the Orlando shooting. "The LGBT community, the gay community, the lesbian community – they are so much in favor of what I've been saying over the last three or four days," Trump said Wednesday in Atlanta.

Still, some campaign strategists are skeptical that his actions this time around will resonate.

Bill Fletcher, a partner of Fletcher Rowley, a Democrat-centered advertising agency, said Trump’s self-congratulation after the shooting is “a textbook example of how not to communicate during a time of national tragedy.”

“I think you can see pretty much universal condemnation of his statements,” Fletcher said. “What Trump did was a bad idea executed poorly. I think you would note the way Republicans are responding to what he did is stronger and more damaging in many respects than what Democrats are saying … It’s hard to defend yourself when people from your own party are attacking you and deploring your action.”

What Republican strategists caution against, and what Democrats are hoping for, is that Trump’s approach will not translate well to a general election, where he needs supporters outside his core primary constituency to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has also incorporated the attack into her political messaging, though in a more conventional manner. She began with expressing sorrow and sadness, before moving to a Monday policy address laying out strategies — including gun control measures and intelligence gathering initiatives — for preventing future attacks. Her address didn’t focus on Trump, but it was an implicit criticism of him.

A day later, on Tuesday, Clinton went after Trump more directly. “What Donald Trump is saying is shameful. It is disrespectful to the people who were killed and wounded and their families,” Clinton said in speech given in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. “And it is yet more evidence that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be commander in chief.”

National security concerns prevent a hurdle for Clinton as well, however. Republicans have criticized the Obama administration (which she worked in as head of the State Department) for its handling of ISIL. The shooter pledged allegiance to ISIL — as well as rival terrorist group Al-Nusra — during the shootings, further fueling Republican criticisms that the group has flourished during Obama’s tenure as commander-in-chief.

Clinton’s call for arms control is sure to face pushback, and charges of political exploitation of a tragedy, from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights’ advocates. “Hillary Clinton says the solution is to ban guns,” Trump said in a speech given Monday in New Hampshire. ”They tried that in France, which has among the toughest gun laws in the world, and 130 were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood. Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the 2nd amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. She wants to take away Americans’ guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.”

For many Republicans, the way the candidates have reacted to the Orlando shooting reinforces their perception of the election as a whole. They see Clinton as an uninspiring candidate whose policies are too close to Obama’s and who could certainly be defeated in November. They’re just not sure Trump is the one to do it.

“Without a change in his behavior, I would guess this is another example of why donors will sit on their wallets and the number of write-in votes will soar in November,” Patton said.